'The House at Old Vine' (3) - Barbara's Tale Quiz | Literature

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Barbara Hatton was the youngest daughter of the family, and it seemed as if she would remain unmarried forever. Why?

Answer: the sister immediately older than her was badly pocked and their mother believed that the elder should marry before the younger

"I had four elder sisters and my mother stuck stubbornly to the old-fashioned notion that marriage should go by seniority. The sister ahead of me, poor Avice, had come badly out of the smallpox; her eyelids had thickened, which gave her a crafty look, most ill-deserved, for she was the soul of simplicity. She was twenty-one and un-bespoken, I was eighteen and getting frightened."

2. Madam Elizabeth came to view, and hopefully buy, the tapestry of David and Goliath, and while she was there Barbara and Avice watched from the top of the stairs. Their mother told the story of how it came to be in their ownership, but which royal personage gave it to the family?

Answer: Henry VIII

In the time that the King was trying to dissolve his marriage to Queen Katherine, Barbara's grandfather championed Anne Boleyn above the Queen and was rewarded with the tapestry from the King's own gift.

3. Barbara was to marry Madam Elizabeth's nephew and move to the Old Vine, where she found her husband John to be an accomplished lover. After just three days, however, the idyll was to end as a spanner was deliberately thrown in the works by - whom?

Answer: Madam Elizabeth

Summoned to help Madam Elizabeth with her hair, Barbara was told about John's paramour, Emma Webster, and how she shared a broad physical resemblance to that woman. Unable to restrain her curiosity, Barbara went to the Hawk in Hand to see her for herself, and thereafter was unable to respond in the same way to John's physical advances. Without the background of friendship, their marriage became stale and was not to revive in any way until it was almost too late.

4. John's father, Arthur, told Barbara what had happened when Madam Elizabeth came out of her room and saved the business, the story being slightly different from that which her father had told her. Arthur's version favoured Madam Elizabeth rather than Harry, and she also learned that Harry was not actually married to the woman he was living with (her husband was in an asylum - Bedlam). In telling the tale, by what name did Arthur refer to his sister?

Answer: Lizbet

"'In those days she hardly came out of her bedroom, except for meals. She'd got into the habit while our mother was alive. Mother and Lizbet didn't . . . get on very well. You know what they say about two women in one house.' He offered me that gentle apologetic smile again. 'And then there was that dreadful day when Harry said to me, 'Arthur, we're ruined.' That's what he said. 'And only Lizbet can save us.' So she did, but not the way Harry looked for. Poor Harry, he was set in his ways and masterful, he couldn't take to the new things . . . You know, there're those who'll say that Lizbet was hard and unkind and turned Harry out. That isn't true. I was here. I know.

She said to him, one day, 'We're like a car with shafts fore and aft and one horse pulling that way and the other the other; we'll never make progress.' So she gave him some money, enough to buy a quarter-share in Barrowby's."

5. What was the business at the Old Vine when Barbara was a young wife?

Answer: silk

Madam Elizabeth sent Arthur to France to learn the business, and it was there that he met and married Francoise, John's mother. The silk looms were expensive, and later Madam Elizabeth was to tell Barbara that she and Arthur lived like paupers for a couple of years when they first started out.

It was due to the expense of replacing the wrecked looms that she and Barbara started the inn rather than re-starting the silk-weaving.

6. Who brought the plague to Baildon in the year that Barbara was pregnant?

Answer: a pedlar

Barbara had only a month to go when this man brought the plague to town. As part of her preparations, Madam Elizabeth brought the midwife to the Old Vine along with stocks of food. The old lady permitted those workers who wished to leave to go out of the enclosure, but in the understanding that they could not return until the threat of the plague was past.

7. What was the name of the worker who left the Old Vine dressed in sackcloth and ashes, determined to spread the word of the Lord into the stricken town?

Answer: Bonham

Because the workers were behaving as if the plague had carried off the workers who left the Old Vine, Madam Elizabeth ordered that one of the sheep be roasted and a feast be had. It was during this that Bonham started ranting and preaching God's judgement.

In an effort to discredit him, Madam Elizabeth threw ashes in his face and suggested he wore sackcloth as well. The next day he left the Old Vine and continued his mission in Baildon itself.

8. Who came to the Old Vine to insist that Barbara return to Mortiboys to have her child in safety?

Answer: her father

Barbara answered without thinking, and said yes. The moment she said it she realised that she should have chosen to remain with her husband, or at least turned to him to ask his opinion. Madam Elizabeth overrode her immediate back-track, saying that she would be better with her mother and further from the threat of the plague, so she packed to leave with her father and the midwife.

9. Did Barbara get the chance to talk to John about Emma Webster before he died?

Answer: Yes

John and Barbara had a few minutes together before she left for Mortiboys, and it was during that they spoke about John's ex-mistress. While Barbara described her as a fat, down-at-heel trollop, John said that he never saw her in that light. He went on to say that they would try again after the plague was gone, and Barbara agreed.

She was never to see him again as he was to die in the riot which was to take place within weeks.

10. Finally realising that Madam Elizabeth ruled by dividing people from each other, Barbara determined not to allow her to control her life again. When the older woman came to visit her at Mortiboys once the plague was cleared, she offered Barbara an equal share in the Old Vine as an inn, or to sit in comfort with her parents and take whatever she would be able to send to her as maintenance. What was Barbara's reply?

Answer: Old Vine

"'God knows how you do it,' I said, 'but you always strike the right note. You're old,' I said brutally, 'old and ruined, beaten to your knees. Anybody else would be done for. But you're struggling up, ready to fight again. What else, by the flames of Hell, can I do but come in and fight alongside?'

Mother said, 'The poor girl's gone hysterical.'

Madam said: 'Oh no. You underestimate your daughter, Mrs Hatton. That is a mistake I never made.'"

Source: Author ArleneRimmer

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'The House at Old Vine' (3) - Barbara's Tale Quiz

Barbara's tale starts with an echo of Anne Blanchefleur, but ends very differently as Barbara was a stronger character altogether.

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